"Until now, no one has told the story of aviation as one of frontier expansion. David T. Courtwright does so in Sky as Frontier. He has written an ambitious history of American aviation ranging from the patent fight between the Wright brothers and Glenn Curtiss through the tragedy of 9/11 and the Iraq War. Along the way, Courtwright stops to consider dogfighting, barnstorming, the first airmail pilots, the development of airlines, air power during World War II, flight's impact on the environment, the troubled space frontier, and how the male-dominated aviation enterprise was domesticated and democratized." "Aviation's frontier stage lasted a scant three decades, then vanished as flying became a settled experience. Sky as Frontier recreates that pioneer world and shows how commercial and military imperatives destroyed it by routinizing flight."--Jacket.